


Prazosin

by redmasquerade13



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Blood and Gore, Death, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Family Member Death, Gore, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 09:01:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14565594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redmasquerade13/pseuds/redmasquerade13
Summary: Your chronic nightmares give you hell, but you have someone by your side





	Prazosin

**Author's Note:**

> Please, PLEASE check the tags before reading. 
> 
> I’ve dealt with chronic nightmares since I was 14. They are vivid, grotesque, terrifying, and many times affect my mood. I used to have multiple nightmares each week. It was a blessing when I’d have a normal, weird dream, or when I wouldn’t remember my dreams and wouldn’t feel an effect from them. Typing this out, it sounds like some sort of mystical, foreboding curse from a fantasy novel.
> 
> Fortunately, there is a blood pressure prescription with the side effect of cutting down on nightmares. During the med’s trial phase, vets with PTSD were testing them and noticed a change almost immediately. It’s a fairly unusual way to deal with the dreams, so a lot of doctors don’t use the method. Fortunately, I had a psychiatrist that saw how much I was suffering. Yes, suffering. Not an exaggeration.
> 
> Normally the dreams I have now are just strange or stressful - a blessed relief from what was my norm, but there are some nights where a nightmare like the old ones slip in. This happens most when my therapist and I are working on my trauma through EMDR.
> 
> I wrote this for me, but wanted to share. What would the boys do in reaction to my nightmares? (Will write this from a typical fem!reader insert narrative perspective - you might deal with what I do too!)
> 
> WARNING: I will be using descriptions of actual dreams I’ve had to give you a sense of immersion, and can help you understand what your loved ones with chronic nightmares and PTSD deal with. There are going to be descriptions of gore, death, and physical assault. I am purposely leaving out any involving sexual assault or self harm because I don’t think I can handle those right now, but if you experience nightmares like that, know that you aren’t alone.
> 
> Writing these out has really helped me. I haven’t been able to process most of these nightmares in therapy, so please be understanding: I am inserting more than just the descriptions of nightmares. Some of what I mention happening to reader have been things I’ve experienced. Unfortunately, I have never had anyone to help me after a nightmare, so it’s nice to imagine help….especially if they look anything like a Chocobro!

**NOCT**

You are running, running. There are body parts nailed and stapled to the wall, children, the elderly, oh Astrals, that was your mother. Where is your love? You need to save him.

You open your mouth to scream and nothing comes out, and your running slows. When did you walk into a patch of hot tar?

Your feet are scalding, and you can feel blisters scarring their way up your body until you are covered head to toe. You are crawling and there are hands, so many hands, claws, severed fingers moving on their own, sliding up your back and shoulders, yanking you towards the end of the hallway. Voices are whispering that you deserve this, you are nothing but a decoration, you are destined to end here.

“Y/N? Baby!”

A familiar voice breaks through, like a separation in the clouds of an afternoon storm.

You are being shaken, and the hands let you go. 

Your eyes jerk open and you feel yourself breathing free air, tears starting to fall. The sun is just barely peeking over the cityscape outside, and you feel yourself being turned away from the window to face your boyfriend. Noctis looks panicked, his features dripping with love and worry. 

“Are….are you okay? You were talking in your sleep, and started yelling!” he says, gently moving your hair from your face and wiping your tears with his hand. Choking down a sob, you leap towards him and grasp him tightly, and after a short moment, he responds in kind. He strokes your head, pulling you as close as he can as you cry into his chest. 

When you were younger, you forced yourself to cry quietly when the dreams pushed you that far. You struggled alone, realizing how alone you were when you woke up screaming at the top of your lungs and couldn’t stop for a minute straight, yet no one came to see what was the matter. That nightmare from years ago was the start of these cursed dreams, your teenage self not understanding what was beginning.

But now you were not alone. Your raven haired boyfriend was here, he knew about the nightmares. You had recently heard about a medication that had a helpful side effect, but no doctors would prescribe it to you for the sake of a side effect. Noct wouldn’t stand for that. He scoured the city to find a sympathetic psychiatrist, calling and searching the Internet for several days until he found an opening with a doctor who had cared enough for his patients that a blog had lauded his praises. Noctis used his royal status to get you in with him as soon as possible. 

He was so frightened when you had spent the night for the first time, and awoke with a violent jolt, sitting straight up and hyperventilating. You had been avoiding sleeping a full night with him, trying to hide what you dealt with. But now he was here. He understood, and he had made sure you got the help you needed.

But some nights the pills didn’t catch everything, and a nightmare would fall through the net. 

Every good or bad night since you added this medication to your daily regimen, Noct has been at your side. He wouldn’t admit it, for the sake of wanting to not show weakness when his girlfriend needed strength, but he wasn’t sure what to do at first. He bullshitted his way through, pretending that stroking your hair and leaving soft kisses was the magic key. After you said you didn’t want to think about the details when he offered to listen to you describe your dream, he never asked again, scared he was making things worse by doing so.

Funny enough, while he worried about not doing the right thing, he was all you needed. He was there. Noctis was there, and he wouldn’t leave. Ever at your side, and you at his. He was always there to hold you close and let you release your fears with tears. 

He squeezed you, and kissed the top of your head. “I’m here, I’m always here, love.”

**PROMPTO**

_I need to run_ , you kept saying aloud. You couldn’t make yourself move any faster around the oversized, geometrical red statue standing in the middle of this white room. You stepped around the small ponds surrounding it, noticing a floating bookshelf and walking through it with no issue.

And the entire time,  _they_  were behind you. 

When you chatted with them about the brand of coffee you were buying at the grocery store yesterday, you never knew they were the sort of people to chase down a stranger, brandishing a kitchen knife and all-black eyes in your dreams. The woman was the most threatening, the man was more intimidating. You didn’t know who you wanted to bump into first. Neither was preferable.

Suddenly, you broke out into a run, your screams made insignificant by the banshee cry the woman right behind you let out. The man appeared in front of you, and held you in place by the shoulders. The woman’s arm snaked around you, knife gleaming and high in the air, and it came slashing down into your belly.

You stood there gasping for air and sobbing - why? What had you done to deserve this? 

You were shook awake, violet blue eyes drilling into yours, the freckles you loved to draw constellations into a mere breath away from your face. 

Seeing you open your eyes, Prompto leaned down and pecked you all across your face, drawing you out of your fearful reverie. The tears you were close to shedding were forgotten as your sunshine boy distracted you with love. You giggled, then moved to circle your arms around him and hold him closely on top of you as you remembered the phantom pain you had felt in your nightmare.

The blonde returned your embrace, his head tilting down into the crook of your neck. He loved smelling your hair and the previous day’s perfume when you held each other close. You had grown to find comfort in it, and squeezed tightly. 

“Want to talk about it? You kept tossing and turning and breathing too fast, I was worried you were gonna start crying, babe,” he spoke into your ear, obviously masking fear. You thought for a moment, and shook your head, “Maybe tomorrow. It’s still dark outside." 

You took a deep breath in, held it, and released, just as your therapist said to do.

Prompto let go of you, and reached down to the floor to pick up the fallen remote. He laid back down next to you, one arm keeping you close as the other switched on the tv and turned on a streaming site. He hummed quietly in thought, and selected the first season of a show you both loved to quote at each other. As it began, he settled next to you, wrapping his other arm around you. He gently stroked your arm, tickling them in that way that you so loved.

"You ever wonder why we’re here?” you mumbled along with the show as you closed your eyes, already feeling sleep approaching.

“I’m here to take care of you,” Prom said, ditching the quote to help you find rest.

 

**GLADIO**

The heart monitor wouldn’t slow down, it kept beeping faster and faster. Invisible hands held you back, keeping you from running with the doctors to go behind the curtain to be with your mom in what you knew were her last moments. You screamed and begged, wanting to hold her hand one last time before she took her last breath.

She flatlined. 

You sat up and started to scream. The moment your lungs ran out of air, you realized you were in bed. Your mom was still alive and kicking in a house a few minutes away, and you weren’t in a hospital as her heart stopped. Unable to scream from a lack of air, you had to remind yourself to take a breath, holding down the urge to scream again from what you had just experienced in your dream.

Sobs began to wrack your body as you covered your mouth with both hands. You heard footsteps and realized the light was on. You had been so discombobulated that you hadn’t noticed Gladio in his favorite chair by the bed, reading the tome of the week. Book forgotten, he was sitting down next to you and pulling you to his chest. 

Being held by a man the size of a tree always brought comfort, but tonight comfort was hard-earned. Tied with losing Gladio for first, your mother dying was your biggest fear, even worse if you couldn’t be by her side to help ease the goodbye for the both of you. Your breath kept hitching as you fought to relax. Gladio leaned down, giving you a small kiss before letting go.

He held your face in his hands, and kissed you very gently. You tried to speak, to apologize, but he interrupted, “Don’t worry about anything, baby doll. I’ll take care of you. That’s what I am meant to do and want to do, as your boyfriend and your Daddy.” He smirked a little and you let out a breathy chuckle at the mention of his role. 

Without another word, he picked you up and set your feet on the floor as he pushed the sheets out of the way. He told you to lay down on your stomach and to take your nightshirt off, and when you gave him an exhausted glare, worried he was going to try and step a little too far into the sexual side of his role as Daddy, he put his hands up in a surrender pose, and said, “Baby girl, I promise my solution is not what you think. Lay on your stomach.”

You obeyed and your eyes fluttered closed, wanting to sleep again but not wanting to give in to another possible nightmare. You opened your eyes at the sound of a bottle opening and closing, and watched as Gladio rubbed a pat of lotion between his hands. “Y/N, fall asleep whenever you need to. Let me help you relax. I hate seeing you like this, baby,” he began to gently rub his way up your bare back. He covered your skin in lotion then began to press small circles in between your shoulders. You loved how soft he caressed you, and the way he knew exactly where you held your tension. He was always so good at massages, in more ways than one.

He pushed up and down the sides of your ribs, and you felt the bed adjust as he leaned over you to leave small kisses on your shoulders. “Sleep, baby girl,  _sleep_. I’ve got you, always,” he whispered lovingly in your ear, and before you could respond, a sweet dream overtook you.

 

**IGNIS**

These stairs were endless. You weren’t sure where you were trying to go, what part of this parking garage you were supposed to walk into, but you  _had_  to run down. No hand railings were there to guide you or help your rush down to the ground level, but it didn’t matter. You weren’t sure what was at the bottom, but it must be safer than where you were now.

You heard a scream, a little girl was screaming and crying a flight above you, and you froze. You weren’t sure how you suddenly knew what was happening, but there were bad men chasing her. They were so close and you were her only chance to get away. With outstretched arms, you yelled, “JUMP! JUMP TO ME!”

The little girl, in a ragged powder blue shift, ripped lace hanging precariously off the sleeves, and her bare feet slipping on the concrete floor, hurried around the corner of the stairs a floor above you. Her eyes wide with fright, her loose hair flying free, she leapt across the opening between the stairs, reaching out to you.

She didn’t make it.

You suddenly were eye to eye with her as she fell all the way down past gods know how many sets of stairs, and you touched down to the ground gently as she hit the asphalt. She broke apart and burst, the sound almost deafening, and you screamed. On the verge of vomiting, you saw how parts of her were scattered across the floor – blood, crushed bones, and innards were everywhere, and you looked down to see that you were covered as well.

You turned around, ran through a door, and slammed it closed behind you, resting against it as you caught your breath. You opened your eyes – how did you get into your bedroom? In a panic, you tried to wipe the remains from you, to no avail. Without an explanation, you went to open your laptop, and threw it away from you as familiar looking blood and bile spilled from it. You turned to puke on the floor and opened your eyes to suddenly see Ignis above you, wiping your forehead with a cool, damp cloth.

“Darling? You were tossing and turning, I figured you were having a nightmare,” he helped you sit up, and reached to the bedside table to offer you a glass of water. “The doctor warned us that sometimes dreams will slip through, is that what happened?” Unable to speak, you nodded, the movement barely noticeable for most, but Ignis wasn’t like most. Understanding your muted signaling, he gently took your hand. He wrapped a throw blanket around your shoulders and gently held you as he led you into the kitchen.

“We want to avoid alcohol and those edibles you purchased before starting this medication, is there something that will help you feel better that I can make for you?” Ignis helped you sit in a chair, tipping the glass towards you, urging you to finish the water. You gulped a sip down, and looked at him. He hadn’t left your side yet, waiting to see if you would answer. He wasn’t rushing you, but he was obviously worried for you. You reached up and stroked his cheek, and he leaned into your touch, gently kissing your palm. You finally found words, and said, “No, I am worried I will be sick if I eat anything, the dream, it-“ your tongue halted, and suddenly a wave of severe nausea flowed over you.

You shoved the glass into his hand and abandoned the blanket and any sense of dignity as you crawled and fell towards the nearby trashcan, shoving your head in. In the back of your mind, you felt grateful for Ignis’ habit to empty the trash every night, so you didn’t come face to face with waste of any sort. The tang of bitter salt filled your mouth, and saliva dripped from your lips. Were you really going to hurl from a nightmare?  _Gods_ , the way the dream bile covered the ground, your belongings, and you –

“Breathe, my darling, breathe. You are safe, nothing is going to hurt you,” Ignis was at your side, and pulled your hair away from your face. “Vomit if you need to, I am here to make sure you come out of this.” You began to wail out ugly sobs, remembering the little girl’s face. You didn’t know who she was, who was chasing her, or why the dream didn’t let her make the small jump into your arms. You felt guilt, as you often did in dreams where you failed to save someone.

“Breathe, breathe, love.”

Ignis’ voice brought you back to yourself, and you obeyed his directions. The nausea backed away. Relief replaced it and washed over you, and you collapsed into his chest, embracing him as the last heaving tears turned into quiet breathing. You both stayed that way until you finally fell asleep in his arms, peace finally taking over. He carried you back to the bedroom, gently setting you on your pillow and nesting you in blankets. He laid down to face you, your noses touching. You awoke for a brief moment, murmured “Thank you, my love,” and settled as close to him as you could. He held you tight, and didn’t leave your side until the morning sun brought you both another bright day at each other’s sides.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this, hopefully you feel somewhat comforted at the idea of being protected and cared for. It helped me a lot. These four dreams that I described are some of the worst, the most vivid, that I’ve had. Like I said in the introduction, there are some I didn’t decide to use because of content, but there’s many more I cannot seem to scrub from my memory.
> 
> I often cannot perceive the difference between reality and dreams for some time after waking up, but for the sake of word count (which is already awfully high) I skipped the part when I oftentimes sit in an awakened coma as I try to bring myself back down to earth.
> 
> If you have any loved ones that suffer from PTSD or chronic nightmares, the best thing you can give is your presence, and a respect for what they tell you with words or body language what they need in the moment. Offer patience, and love. They are with you, so they are safe.
> 
> If your loved one wants to try a medication for their nightmares, have them research Prazosin. If you have any questions, here is my linktree, feel free to ask whatever is on your mind https://linktr.ee/redmasqueradecosplay


End file.
